This Beautiful Spring
by Akimi Kono
Summary: AU. Iruka is a teacher at Konoha Junior High. He's surprised to see a new teacher there but quickly befriends her. He finds that he really likes her, but a couple of other, more experienced teachers have also taken an interest in the girl. Oh, and there's the small problem of dealing with Naruto who may or may not know about Iruka's feelings. Iruka/OC.


**A/N: **Oh another AU instead of working on the ones I already have. Ahahaha... This was part of my daydream yesterday so I decided to turn it into a story. I've been thinking about teaching a lot recently since I'll be going to BSU to be an international English teacher. I wanted to meet an Iruka or Kakashi when/if I go to Japan. What would they teach? Hm..

I don't know exactly where this story is going. I guess we'll find out.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own NARUTO, characters, plot lines, etc. etc. I own my OCs, original dialogue, settings, etc. etc. I hope you all like it. As always, unbeta'd.

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Iruka stopped suddenly as he passed by the open door of the classroom, catching a glimpse of a pink skirt and long, dark brown hair in the corner of the room. He retraced his steps backwards and peered into the room to see a tall girl bending over a red plastic bucket filled with various school supplies and books. He stood up straight and glanced around, unsure what to do. He looked over at the nameplate attached to the wall at around eye-level. It used to say "Mrs. Fukuyama", but now it said "Miss Kono" on a piece of thick parchment taped over the metal plaque. Must be temporary.

He continued to watch the girl as she pulled out papers and a stack of blue pens that began to slowly drop to the ground one by one. She kicked them out of the way to avoid stepping on them and breaking them, and set the papers on her desk. She leaned down and began to pick up the rolling pens. Now was his chance. He was going to talk to her. He had to find out who she was.

He took a hesitant step into the classroom and raised his closed fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. The girl looked up then stood, holding a handful of pens. Her eyes caught his and they widened a bit in surprise. She shuffled around to put the pens into a ceramic mug decorated with a small panda in a striped shirt wearing an apple for a hat. She wiped her palms on the length of her skirt and walked over to the doorway.

"Hi," she said, smiling at the man. He nodded then realized he should introduce himself.

"Hi," he replied, "you're, uhm … you're the new teacher?" It was a guess, but whether he was right or not, he'd get an answer.

She nodded, her long hair bouncing around her shoulders. "Yes! I'm Miss Kono. Oh! Well, you can call me Akimi. Sorry, I've been practicing how to introduce myself to the students."

The male teacher smiled a bit at the obvious nervousness of the young girl. "I'm Mr. Umino. But you can call me Iruka." He finished the sentence with a wink which caused a flush of pink to rise to the girl's face.

"O-Okay," she mumbled shyly, tucking long strands of hair behind her ear. She glanced at the floor then back at him, biting her lower lip to keep from smiling too much. Iruka felt a little bit of pride swell up in his chest and he stood up straight, propping his arm up on the doorjamb and leaning into it.

"So... how old are you?"

Akimi perked up a bit, looking at him a bit puzzled. "Uhm, w-why?"

"You just look a little young to be teaching."

"Oh... well I'm 23."

"I didn't think you could teach right out of college."

"I spent a year as a student teacher and a year as a substitute."

"Hmm. And you got a job here just like that?"

"Yes. I guess. There was an opening."

"Yeah, Mrs. Fukuyama left. This is her old room."

"I know," she smiled. "But I guess it's my room now."

"I guess so."

"But they never did get rid of her nameplate from the door. They just put mine over it... kind of."

"Yeah, I saw it."

More blush spotted the girl's round cheeks. "It's just a piece of paper, but it's better than nothing."

"That's true."

A moment of silence as Iruka reclined against the door frame, watching the girl fiddle with the top button of her cream-colored blouse. He was tempted to reach out and help her adjust it but thought better of it and kept his hands to himself. She looked up at him as if she had read his mind and narrowed her hazel eyes. He seemed to break out into a cold sweat and pushed himself to his feet, feeling the indentation of the door frame imprinted on his wrist. The price of being cool.

"What?" he asked, a bit worried.

"You said I looked too young to be teaching. But you look pretty young yourself. How old are _you_?"

"I'm 27."

The girl swatted at him with the back of her hand and he flinched. "You're not much older than me!"

"But I'm still older."

"How long have you been working here?"

"I've been teaching for four years, but before that I was a student teacher here for two years."

"You started at the same age as me then! You have no right to criticize me!"

"I wasn't criticizing, just observing."

"Right." She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. Iruka couldn't tell if she was really upset or that was just how she flirted – if she was flirting. He decided not to dwell on the subject and picked up a new topic.

"So I guess this will be your first year actually teaching by yourself, huh?"

"Yeah. It'll be … interesting."

"To say the least. Just to warn you, there is a fair share of troublemakers in this school. I've dealt with a lot of them, so if you need any help or advice, you know..."

"Yeah, definitely."

"Okay, cool." Did he just say _cool_? What person actually said that? Correction: what person _his age_ said that? He glanced at the girl to see if she was judging him but she seemed indifferent to his choice of words. She was young. Maybe she didn't care. "Cute room," he blurted out suddenly without actually thinking.

Akimi glanced over her shoulder at the room. She had pulled up the blinds to let in sunlight and opened the window to let the early spring warmth into the room. Paper name tags were placed on her desk for the students to take and tape on their own desks; she had filled up her desk drawers with countless pens and markers and packs of paper. The cabinets and cupboards were filled with every school supply imaginable plus a few extra. Each cabinet door had a paper apple with a short description of what was inside. She decorated the cork board with pale green gingham paper and yellow paper flowers to celebrate spring. A bowl of candy was on the end of her desk to inspire good work from the incoming students; a happy-looking Rilakkuma was etched on the whiteboard in black marker with a curling speech bubble that read "_Relaxation comes after a job well done!" _Her name was printed above it in blue marker, the kanji a bit too formal and neat.

She turned back to him and smiled kindly. "Thank you! It's not entirely how I imagined it, but I think I made it work okay."

Iruka nodded. He motioned towards the ceramic cup on the desk. "I like your little …. pen cup."

Akimi looked back again then faced him again, beaming. "Really? I got it when I was in Shinjuku. It's Pandapple."

A look of minor confusion crossed the older teacher's face. "It's what?"

"Pandapple. A panda .. and an apple."

"Oh." Realization came to him and he nodded yet again. "Yeah, it's cute."

"I got some other things while I was there but I figure I better leave them at home … at least for the first day of school."

"Right. You don't want anything broken."

"Right."

Another moment of silence. Iruka cleared his throat again and shifted on his feet, sticking his hands into his pant pockets. "Well, good luck."

"Huh?"

"Good luck, with your class. Your first day of your first year. You're going to need all the luck you can get."

"Oh... well, thank you... Good luck too."

"Thanks." He took a step back but Akimi stopped him.

"Actually! Uhm, well... I wanted to tell you something."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I ..." Akimi twirled a long piece of dark hair around her index finger and looked up at him from behind long, black eyelashes. "I hope..."

"...yeah?" Was it getting unusually hot for April or was it just him? They should really fix that AC before summer came.

"I hope … you get all the troublemakers so I don't have to deal with them."

Any hope of a flirtatious parting remark from the girl was instantly gone and Iruka pressed his lips together, almost kicking himself for expecting anything else than what he got. "Well, you know that now you're going to get them all because you said that."

"What? Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah, that's how it works. When you wish something bad on someone, you get it back tenfold. Karma."

"I don't believe in karma! And I'm pretty sure that's not how it works."

"How would you know if you don't believe in it?"

"Because if that's how it worked then there would be a lot of people would have gotten their just desserts already! But they haven't."

"That's because karma's waiting for the right moment."

"Sure." She rolled her eyes playfully and smacked him on the arm with her hand. "Maybe karma will be on my side and send you all the troublemakers."

"You can hope."

"Oh, I will."

The sudden and shrill ring of the bell sounded over them signaling the beginning of the school day. Iruka backed out of the classroom into the hallway, glancing around to see if any students had made it to their hallway yet. None so far. He took a quick step forward down the hall but immediately turned around and poked his head back into Akimi's room. She was stepping out of the class at the same time to see him off and nearly collided with him. She shrunk back, giggling as she clutched at the waist of her skirt.

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, bowing. "I thought you'd left."

"No, I'm sorry," he bowed in return, blushing at their near collision. "I just wanted to tell you that if you ever need to talk, or if you need help or anything – or if you want someone to eat lunch with then you can – I'm just, you know – I'm right down the hallway." He stuck his arm out and pointed to an unseen room.

Akimi grabbed a handful of skirt, blushing warmly as she stepped closer to the teacher and peered out of her room and to where he was pointing.

"I'm right down there. My name is on the plaque outside, you know. It says 'Mr. Umino'. …. you know, my name."

She nodded and quietly replied, "Yes, I know."

"Okay. Cool." He really needed to stop saying that. He swallowed hard and planted a wide palm on the top of his head. "Well I guess I better get to my room before the kids do. You always want to be there before they are so you have some sort of power of them, I guess. If you're late they stop respecting you or they start showing up late themselves. I guess they figure that if the teacher's late then they can be too."

"All right. Thanks... for the advice."

"Sure, no problem."

"Yeah... so …. I guess I better let you go."

"Hmm? Oh! Right. Yeah. Sure." Iruka bowed quickly then stood, getting one last look at the tan-skinned girl with rosy cheeks. He started off down the hall to his own classroom, glancing over his shoulder to see the girl watching him leave. He blushed and turned around, ducking his head down and hurrying to his room. He half-hoped that he'd have all the troublemakers to save her from the stress, but he also hoped that she'd have them so that she'd really need someone to talk to and come to him for advice. Maybe they'd both get some and they could bond over a mutual understanding and go for coffee to vent about the stresses of teaching.

With one glance back towards where Akimi had been peering out into the hall, Iruka shut himself in his room and took his place at the front of the room. He heard the distant chattering of approaching students and did a preliminary glance around the room to see if everything was in place. Satisfied with the set up of his room, he sat down in his chair and folded his hands together. His mind wandered from the students to the new teacher down the hall. She was cute, right? A little young (not _that _much younger than him), maybe a bit naïve, but it seemed like she could definitely have a future at the school. He sighed and rubbed his temples. It was going to be a very interesting year. And if he did end up getting a certain student in his class, then it was going to be a very long year. He was going to need a lot of coffee.


End file.
